Greater Good
by Bellicose Blue
Summary: Hermione travels back in time to kill a young Tom Riddle. Really, she should have no second thoughts at all.
_utilitarianism: the belief that a morally good action is one that helps the greatest number of people_

* * *

"It is imperative that this threat is eliminated from the world," Dumbledore had told her some time before he died, the usual twinkle absent from his eyes. He looked like an ancient temple, all crumbling stone and faded relics and whispers of power echoing long-vanished glory. He looked _tired_. "If Harry cannot defeat him in this form, Miss Granger, I must beg of you to use this Time-Turner to return to when Tom Riddle still lived in the orphanage. He was not innocent, even then. If Harry fails-"

"You want me to kill a _child_?" she'd interjected then, shock and horror punctuating her words.

"It is-" He had hesitated, sighed. "It is one of the greatest evils imaginable, to kill a child. But Tom Riddle was no child- _is_ no child, in his past. Miss Granger, if I thought there was any other way to prevent the ruin of the world, I would have told you." _Trust me,_ his eyes had said, _trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me_. And she had.

She'd taken the golden Time-Turner he'd given her, had looped it around her neck, safely encased in glass and spells to ensure it wouldn't turn unless she willed it. And she hides all throughout their travels, tucks it down the front of her robes during the battle at Hogwarts, until Voldemort sets Harry's body on fire in front of the entire school. She reaches surreptitiously under her robes and whispers amidst the sudden wailing furor, "For the greater good."

She can feel it begin to whir beneath her robes, spinning far faster than the eye can detect, enchanted to spin back some sixty-five years in the same amount of time it had taken her to travel back just a few hours back when she had used a Time-Turner for her studies. Halfway across the battlefield, shrouded in smoke and glory, Voldemort whirls sharply around, eyes wide with recognition and rage, just beginning to shout a curse that burns green at the tip of his wand. His screams of fury echo in her ears even as she vanishes.

She lands staggering and stands, concealed by enough magic that her skin tingles, and watches. She's landed at the edge of what must be the orphanage, a small, grim building utterly devoid of cheer. There's a group of children playing some nonsensical game on the patchy lawn, hollering and shoving at one another. There's a kind of furtive slyness, a roughness to their actions that remind her less of play than of the war she's just left behind. Even the youngest have hardened eyes that slide over her presence like she isn't even there, and to them she isn't. To all of them, that is, except for one.

 _He_ eyes her almost curiously, all dark eyes and pale skin, already carrying an aura about him that seems to warn the other children away, for few dare to include him in their game. She swallows, remembering slitted pupils and the stench of death, and meets his gaze. Slowly, haughtily, he begins to wander over, the crowd parting before him. They seem none too interested in what has caught this young Tom Riddle's icy eye.

Still layered beneath those charms designed to ward off Muggles, she makes her way across the lawn and enters the building, looking back to check if he's following her. He is, and there's some swirl of emotion- contempt and hatred and the slightest flash of fear- that are visible briefly before his face shutters. He is not a nice boy, this Tom Riddle. Already he's got the other children cowed by his displays of force, the matron unusually- some would say unnaturally- fixated on her liquor. She already knows his future, the atrocities he'll commit gleefully as soon as he is able. Really, she should have no second thoughts at all.

 _For the greater good._ And it's Dumbledore's voice in her ear, eyes gleaming like a fanatic's as he tells her what must be done. And it's Harry, sweet, noble Harry, anguished as he says, "This isn't love, the mess he's left me in."

What will she do when- if- when- she kills Tom? She can't exactly flip the Time-Turner back and move her ahead in time. Time moves backwards swiftly, but forwards at the crawl of daily life. Did Dumbledore mean for her to stay in this unfamiliar era, with no resources, not even a place to spend the night? Will the Ministry of Magic take her in, a Muggleborn with an impossible story and a preemptive murder? Or will they confine her to Azkaban, wipe what remnants of her soul remain with a Dementor's kiss?

 _For the greater good._ She'll kill this boy, sacrifice her own virtue, in order to prevent the destruction that would- that will- accompany Voldemort's rule. She should be eager to do so- _any_ of the Order members would have leaped at the opportunity, but for some reason Dumbledore had entrusted the final mission to her.

And with a sudden, sickening horror, she thinks of Dumbledore, master manipulator. Why indeed.

She's the girl who wanted to free House-Elves, who had believed in equality for all, even nonhumans. Of course Dumbledore had still clung to thoughts of redemption even when faced with horrors. If she could feel sympathy for servile, clinging creatures, couldn't she be compassionate towards this boy? Wouldn't the poor, ostracized Mudblood feel pity for the boy also exiled for his birth and excessive intelligence? Perhaps she could rehabilitate him, teach him to feel empathy for everyone regardless of their attributes. But what if she failed? Oh, Merlin, she surely can't kill the boy when she realizes too late that he's unchangeable! She'll grow to care for him as surely as anything, and then she'll be powerless to stop him, and the world will crumble anew.

(She thinks of the paradox that will make her disappear once the future is irrevocably changed, but the thought doesn't weigh heavy on her mind. She has _nothing_ left. She's practically dead anyway.)

Tom follows her into a dim, tiny room that must be his own bedroom and shuts the door. "I don't believe we've been introduced," he says, all polite charm with just a flicker of menace, and _oh_ , he's so cold already, this perfectly composed child with the dark, dark eyes. "I'm Tom Riddle." He waits almost expectantly, but she remains silent, eyes fixated on a point somewhere above his shoulder. She can't bear to look at him. "I can _see_ you," he finally bursts out after a few long moments. "But they can't. Why?" It's a command, a forceful demand for information rather than an expression of curiosity.

"Hello, Tom," she finally says. The words fall flat in the room.

"Are you _daft_?" Tom spits, a sneer marring that unnatural beauty. "The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? I didn't realize they recruited using their own patients!" Clearly he hopes to provoke her somehow into revealing more, but if anything, her silence just unnerves him. His glare fades, to be replaced by wariness. "Who are you?"

"My name is Hermione." Somehow it doesn't feel right to kill this boy without telling him her name. "I am a witch."

Tom freezes, the dizzying motion of his eyes as they flicker between hers the only sign he's still alive. "A witch?" he asks quietly. "Like… like the magic kind of witch?"

"That's right," she responds, just as softly.

"It's… it's magic, what I can do?" Raw, bestial joy transforms his face into something more beautiful and yet more terrifying than before.

"What is it that you can do?" It's like she's speaking into the void. She thinks she could scream and he'd still remain in his frenzy.

"All sorts," Tom breathes, pride and excitement flushing his face. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Hope shatters inside her chest, breaking her with each feverish word he speaks. She'd thought there might yet be hope for him, had counted on it, even, if she were honest with herself. This boy is irredeemable.

Tom's still babbling excitedly when her curse hits him in the chest.

"Never again," she promises to the air above his corpse. Those dark, dark eyes just stare back at her, empty. Oh, but she doesn't feel empty, not at all. She feels sturdy and unshakeable and indomitable, so powerful she almost quivers with magic. This must be how it feels to change the world: like she's discovered an ancient temple in ruins, still pulsing with power and secrets and Dark, Dark magics. She can feel its energy crackling in the air like electricity, melting on her tongue like sugar, inconstant and dangerous and absolutely tantalizing.

She unwinds the golden chain from her neck and holds it in her hand, twines it around her fingers. It twinkles up at her so deceptively, like every secret hope and wish rolled into one. She doesn't need to look at it to know the words engraved on its innermost ring; she's learned its false promises by heart. "Never again," she says aloud in the silent room, like a plea, like a prayer, like a command. Dumbledore thought he'd play her for a fool? He'll see. They'll all see. And no one will even know why.

* * *

The matron screams when she opens the door to Tom's room. Oh, she'd never liked him, that slimy sycophant who sent shivers down her spine whenever he looked at her with those dark, dark eyes, but her veiled mistrust had certainly never extended to wishing him dead. She kneels beside his cooling body with that unearthly delight frozen on his face and runs a finger on the floor, looking at it in the light. It's strange, the insignificant details people notice in times of distress. Silky white sand mingles with fragments of gold, shattered and crushed beyond recognition. She stares at it for a moment, then shakes her head and slowly pulls herself to her feet. She has calls to make and a funeral to plan. She needs a drink.

A few miles away, the Ministry burns.


End file.
